Mapping Human and Natural Systems

Pete Bettinger is a professor of forestry at the University of Georgia. He teaches forest planning, forest measurements, and aerial photogrammetry; and conducts research in applied forest management with particular emphasis on harvest scheduling, precision forestry, and geospatial technologies. Dr. Bettinger has worked with the forest industry in the southern and western United States, and maintains this connection to forestry professionals through his leadership in the Southern Forestry and Natural Resource Management GIS Conference and other continuing education courses he offers. Dr. Bettinger is also a co-author of two other books published by Academic Press, Introduction to Forestry and Natural Resources, and Forest Plans of North America.

Krista Merry is a geographer and research coordinator in the School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. She conducts research in applied forest management with an emphasis on remote sensing, geospatial technologies, landscape planning, and precision forestry. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography from the University of Georgia. She has extensive experience in using geographic information systems (GIS), satellite imagery, and aerial photography, and has earned GISP certification from the GIS Certification Institute. She has published 35 peer-reviewed journal articles and is co-editor of Forest Plans of North America (Academic Press, 2015). She has acted as chair of the Proceedings of the Southern Forestry and Natural Resource Management GIS Conference four times (soforgis.uga.edu). She also has experience in developing online continuing education courses (introgps.uga.edu) and has led the data collection efforts for several human subject surveys.

Kevin Boston is a lecturer of forestry at Humboldt State University. He conducts research in applied forest management with emphasis on harvest scheduling, forest road management, landscape planning, precision forestry, and geospatial technologies. He received a bachelor’s degree in forestry from Humboldt State University, and master’s and PhD degrees in forest engineering at Oregon State University. He obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Lewis & Clarke College in Portland, Oregon. He worked for the forest industry in the western United States and in New Zealand. He was a principal in the GIS firm VESTRA Resources in 1988. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and is a co-author of two books published by Academic Press. He is managing editor of Mathematical and Computational Forestry & Natural-Resource Sciences. He teaches a wide range of forestry courses at Humboldt State University. To our knowledge, he is the only person who has received teaching awards from three different university forestry programs.